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Alphabet Soup

What radical courage does it take to love in the face of hate? Through portraiture and personal narratives highlighting joy, belonging, found family and meaningful romantic and platonic relationships, KBIA’s Alphabet Soup challenges the notion that Missouri’s LGBTQ+ community is a monolith.Tucked away within the amalgamation of letters that makes up the LGBTQ+ community and the complex identities each represents is joy: rebellious, resistant, radiant. If you have a story you would like to share, visit https://tinyurl.com/LGBTQJoy or contact news@kbia.org.Created by Bailey Stover.

Cosmo Evans: "My mom... opened my mind up to the fact that there were intersex people."

KBIA | By Reporter & Photographer: Bailey Stover, Producers: Alex Cox & Rebecca Smith, Photo Editor: Nick Sheaffer

Published August 9, 2024 at 2:00 PM CDT

Cosmo Evans sits on their couch on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at their apartment in Columbia. Evans, a neurodivergent, nonbinary, intersex disabled Army veteran, grew up in a small, conservative, rural Missouri town in the mid-90s. “I remember growing up and like seeing the women's rights rallies—and seeing other gay protests and seeing how far they had come—and then seeing so many bills go through to support gay people and women. And then all of a sudden now we're losing all of these rights that we had worked so hard for, for gays and women. And, like, what is happening? I feel like there's so much history repeating itself right now. It's really scary,” Evans said. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they explored their queerness and began embracing their nonbinary identity. Although Evans’ mother passed away more than a decade ago, they said she had long been their fierce supporter, and they speculated on what their mom’s reaction would have been to their coming out. “She would either be so excited that I'm gay, or she'd be so disappointed that I did not marry a doctor because I remember her always telling me, ‘I want you to marry a doctor,’” Evans said. “I also think that she would be just so elated that I'm gay, that that's what I truly feel like she would be.”

Cosmo Evans grew up in a small town and are nonbinary and intersex. They’ve known they were intersex since childhood but didn’t really explore the nonbinary side of their identity until lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They spoke about what it was like growing up in rural Missouri in the 1990s.

Alphabet Soup shares LGBTQ+ Missourians’ stories through portraiture and personal narratives.

Cosmo Evans: I guess I've just kind of always had it in the back of my mind, but I was just scared to act on it because I grew up in a really small town where it was portrayed to me that lesbians were just old women and flannel with a million cats.

Which, to me, actually doesn't seem like a bad thing, but that's how it was portrayed to me.

So, yeah, I just always thought I was straight, and that's what was pushed on me, and it was just always in the back of my mind until I finally acted on it during quarantine.

I was, I was born intersex, but I still have a uterus and stuff. It's long and complicated, but I've always liked dressing in boys and girls clothes – even as little kid, and my mom never pushed me to only wear girls clothes.

If I wanted to wear JNCOs and just big baggy shirts and stuff like that and paint my room blue, my mom was super down for it. But then when I felt like wearing dresses and stuff, she would support that too.

She was not someone who pushed me to be a certain type of way, which I appreciated that.

Then, also as a kid, if they would ask like, “Alright, all the boys help pick up the chairs and stuff.” I'd be like, “I'll do it.”

I don’t know, I just want to do all the things the boys were doing. Not to hang out with the boys. I just felt like that was where I belonged – in a way, but also with the girls.

Like, it wasn't just I felt like a boy. I just feel like both.

LEFT: Cosmo Evans displays a tattoo of a tooth on their arm on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at their apartment in Columbia. Evans said they have worked as a dental assistant for the past 15 years. “I just love my job as a dental assistant,” Evans said thinking about their future. “I would love to be able to continue that and just be at a place kind of like where I am now where I can walk down to a trail and just hike. Just a lot more windows than where I'm at now, where I can get a lot more sunlight in. That'd be a good, happy place.”

RIGHT: Cosmo Evans displays a pink ribbon tattoo with the words “My Mom” “My Hero” on their arm on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at their apartment in Columbia. Evans said the tattoo is in memory of their mother, whom they lost to breast cancer when they were 15 years old. “Getting top surgery would be gender affirming. I don’t want a chest anymore,” Evans said. “And it would just help prevent any possible future breast cancer chances since I'm high risk. So, you know, two birds, one stone.” — LEFT: Cosmo Evans displays a tattoo of a tooth on their arm on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at their apartment in Columbia. Evans said they have worked as a dental assistant for the past 15 years. “I just love my job as a dental assistant,” Evans said thinking about their future. “I would love to be able to continue that and just be at a place kind of like where I am now where I can walk down to a trail and just hike. Just a lot more windows than where I'm at now, where I can get a lot more sunlight in. That'd be a good, happy place.” RIGHT: Cosmo Evans displays a pink ribbon tattoo with the words “My Mom” “My Hero” on their arm on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at their apartment in Columbia. Evans said the tattoo is in memory of their mother, whom they lost to breast cancer when they were 15 years old. “Getting top surgery would be gender affirming. I don’t want a chest anymore,” Evans said. “And it would just help prevent any possible future breast cancer chances since I'm high risk. So, you know, two birds, one stone.”

I grew up watching The Fairly OddParents, and then Cosmo, from Cosmo and Wanda, like, he carried the baby. He was just like, just more feminine, and I love that.

And, I don’t know, I just really liked the name, and my birth name started with a “C,” so, I won't have to change my initials.

I think that helped that my mom brought that up to me when I was younger. At least opened my mind up to the fact that there were intersex people because I don't think anyone talked about that in the 90s.

I even took a health class in high school – even in my small town, we talked about like periods and like condoms and stuff like that, but never once touched on intersex people.

It would have been nice for other people to hear that they exist. I mean, in my small town, they might not have even heard the word, I don't know, back then, you know?

That would have been nice to talk about because I think it's a little bit more common than we even discuss, I mean, not even everyone who's intersex knows that they're intersex because it's not all something you can just visually see.

Cosmo Evans pets Neko, one of their two cats, on their couch on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at their apartment in Columbia. “I grew up in a really small town where it was portrayed to me that lesbians were just old women in flannel with a million cats, which, to me actually doesn't seem like a bad thing, but that's how it was portrayed to me,” Evans said. “I just always thought I was straight, and that's what was pushed on me. And, but it was just always in the back of my mind till I finally acted on it during quarantine. It was just driving me crazy. I was just like, ‘I can't grow old or just, like, die or marry a man without just acting on this feeling: sleeping with a woman, touching a woman, like just anything like that.’”